DARK, EPIC FANTASY.
LET ME TAKE YOU ON A JOURNEY THROUGH THE DOMASHPERE
The official blog of Jane Domagala

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Some time ago, I created a
character who was extremely disturbed, extremely violent, extremely
narcissistic and completely delusional. Sounds like a charmer, right? I gave my
story to one of my readers and the feedback was that they didn't like my
character, who I'll call Dark, and didn't want to read Dark's scenes.

I was disheartened by this.
After all, isn't it a writer's job to make their characters connectable to the
reader, whether the character is good or bad? Yes. Unfortunately, there was
nothing about Dark that was redeeming, nothing nice, nothing that the everyday
person could relate to. Dark was a wretched human being. It did, however, make
me as the question: how does one go about making bad character likeable?

A good friend once said, they
need to be interesting. Great advice. People want to be able to understand your
characters and feel they know them. They want to have something that connects
them to the antagonist, even if he/she is a beastly demon bent on destroying
mankind. Give them a back story and a reason why they do what they do. It may
that they were just born that way, like the human killing demon. To make our
demon interesting, they may, in contrast
to their desire to kill humans, also find humans fascinating. Or they may enjoy reading books.

Another suggestion is find
something normal about your antagonist. If they're experiences are too far
removed from the reader's, the reader may not connect. Our demon likes to be
well groomed and picks food from his teeth to keep them clean.

The stereotypical bad guy who only
does bad things leaves your antagonist two dimensional. Remember, your antagonists
have families and friends and people (or demons) they see every day.

It helps to go back through your
character's childhood. Were they always bad? Did something happen in their life
to make them bad? I believe both nature and nurture can play a role in why
someone might do bad things, so you're evil characters don't always have to
have come from an abusive home. Dark was from a very normal, happy family. He
was simply a born psychopath.

Find the things that are dear to
your antagonist's heart. What is it they care about? Besides killing, do they have
any passions? Do they have any favourite things/possessions? Do they have
morals? Do they have a sense of humour?

We often label bad people as
monsters. My advice is to keep delving into what makes your evil character tick
until you find that one thing that allows you see them (even the demons) as
human.